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From Library Journal
It was a big year for Hammett. He was the subject of a TV film as well as an American Masters TV biography. Knopf, his original publisher, gathered 20 early stories, and the Library of America added his complete novels to its prestigious ranks. Long overdue recognition. (Classic Returns, LJ 8/99)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Complete in one volume, the five books that created the modern American crime novel
In a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett invented the modern American crime novel. In the words of Raymond Chandler, "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.... He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes."
The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected here in one volume, have become part of modern American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the ground rules and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective, Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. His lean and deliberately simplified prose won admiration from such contemporaries as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner.
Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929) epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about the anonymous detective the Continental Op, in a raucous and nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a western mining town. In The Dain Curse (1929) the Op returns in a more melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a religious cult. With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett achieved his most enduring popular success, a tightly constructed quest story shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the arbitrariness of personal destiny. The Glass Key (1931) is a further exploration of city politics at their most scurrilous. His last novel was The Thin Man (1934), a ruefully comic tale paying homage to the traditional mystery form and featuring Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a long afterlife in the movies.
In a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett invented the modern American crime novel. In the words of Raymond Chandler, "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.... He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes."
The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected here in one volume, have become part of modern American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the ground rules and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective, Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. His lean and deliberately simplified prose won admiration from such contemporaries as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner.
Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929) epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about the anonymous detective the Continental Op, in a raucous and nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a western mining town. In The Dain Curse (1929) the Op returns in a more melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a religious cult. With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett achieved his most enduring popular success, a tightly constructed quest story shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the arbitrariness of personal destiny. The Glass Key (1931) is a further exploration of city politics at their most scurrilous. His last novel was The Thin Man (1934), a ruefully comic tale paying homage to the traditional mystery form and featuring Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a long afterlife in the movies.
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Of the pioneers of the American crime fiction, no one stands above Dashiell Hammett. His colorful gangsters, greedy molls, crooked politicians and disillusioned cops rank among the most memorable characters in crime fiction. Who could forget Sam Spade or his nemesis, "fat man" Gutman in the "Maltese Falcon". Or the anonymous operative of the Continental Detective Agency who cleans out a corrupt city single-handedly by instigating a series of bloody gang wars in "Red Harvest" (the same anonymous detective that solves the puzzle of "The Dain Curse" as well as appearing in dozens of short stories published in "Black Mask Magazine"). Then, of course, there are Nick and Nora Charles swapping wit over endless Martinis and bootleg booze as they search for "The Thin Man". All of these characters are chiseled out of Tommy Guns, saps and automatics that are never far from the action.
Hammett moves his plots ahead with the speed of a race car driver. We go from one scene of mayhem to another with the story lubricated by the blood of the killers and the victims.
These are not the refined "I've-brought-you-together-in-he drawing-room-to-expose-Sir-William's-murderer" type of stories. They depend more on Hammett's long experience as a Pinkerton detective and are rough and rude and represent an America of the twenties and thirties where debutants danced with gangsters and the law could be bought for a bottle of bootleg gin.
Hammett moves his plots ahead with the speed of a race car driver. We go from one scene of mayhem to another with the story lubricated by the blood of the killers and the victims.
These are not the refined "I've-brought-you-together-in-he drawing-room-to-expose-Sir-William's-murderer" type of stories. They depend more on Hammett's long experience as a Pinkerton detective and are rough and rude and represent an America of the twenties and thirties where debutants danced with gangsters and the law could be bought for a bottle of bootleg gin.
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